I recently flew Continental and received a complimentary meal on the flight. While I have to tip my hat to them for providing a free hot meal on a domestic flight (are they the only ones?) I was fascinated with a particular item they gave me.

They bestowed upon me, along with a salad and some candy, a “Turkey BBQ Bake.” In practice it is similar to a Hot Pocket. And I was hungry, so I ate it. But when I dug in, expecting to find Turkey and BBQ sauce, I discovered this odd mush which bewildered and frightened me.

On my flight back, I got another one.  Instead of eating it, I took it home and dissected it to document this peculiar food item. The methodology I followed was not unlike “unboxing” videos you find about tech gadgets (examples here, here & here).

So, without further ado, I present: The Continental Airlines Turkey BBQ Bake

This is what it looks like served to you on the plane. The candy and salad dressing are underneath the Turkey BBQ Bake.

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I took it home and put it on one of my nicer white plates.

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Next, you remove the wrapper.

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Horizontal top view of the Turkey BBQ Bake

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Vertical top view of the Turkey BBQ Bake

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Next I cut it down the middle. The cross-section you see is a good example of how it looks after you’ve taken a bite out of it. You expected it to look more like pieces of turkey, right?

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Here I’ve split one the halves open so you can get a good look at the insides.

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And for the grand finale, I scooped the insides out of both halves and piled them up on the plate.

This concludes our tour of the Continental Airlines Turkey BBQ Bake.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-North Dakota) is the only person alive who uses the figure of speech “Like hogs in a corn crib”:

1987-12-16: “For the last couple of years, the takeover artists and the investment bankers who ride shotgun for them have been feeding like hogs in a corn crib.”

1997-10-07: “They will feel, I assume, like hogs in a corn crib when this is all done.”

2008-04-07: “So they sell these loans to hedge funds and investment banks and everybody is fat and happy like hogs in a corn crib.”

2008-09-17: “They were all over the country like hogs in a corn crib snorting and making money, hauling it to the bank, saying: We are making big money by putting out bad paper.”

2008-11-20: “They were like hogs in a corn crib, buying and selling, making lots of money, everybody is wading in cash.”

2008-12-08: “They are all making big fees, grunting and shoving like hogs in a corn crib, massive amounts of money, big bonuses.”

Grand total up to 65. New ones: KEF, RVK, GRY, AEY.

This project has been updated accordingly.

CVG, 61.

Lame!

It used to be that for flights less than 500 miles, you still got 500 miles of credit. Now they are getting all stingy with frequent flier miles. So if you fly from New York to Boston, you only get a couple hundred points. 500 points is barely worth anything, but to cut it even more? Lame.

Now I’ve plotted this: http://tinyurl.com/3d6uwb

This is a drive from Fairbanks, Alaska to Key West, Florida. Then to San Diego, California, and back over to Labrador City, Quebec. Then back to Fairbanks. Repeat this sequence about 6 times. And check “Avoid Highways”.

The result is over 108,000 miles (~4x circumference of the earth), and would take 110 consecutive days of driving without stopping. If you drove 8 hours a day, it would take you almost a year. The Google Maps directions include 5,022 steps (And you wind up back at Fairbanks city hall).
I’ll be the first to acknowledge I could have made an even longer trip by just going back and forth between Fairbanks and Key West. I could have made a more interesting pattern by making tight zig zags across north america. So this is kinda in between.

I still wonder what the longest possible Google Maps trip is. If they allowed you to plot a drive on the Pan American Highway, THEN we’d be talking some serious mileage.

In case you feel like driving for a month without stopping.

While I normally go to lengths to avoid forfeiting my frequent flier miles, I take a certain amount of satisfaction in having cashed out my miles such that I had only 38 left. I also enjoy having divested myself of US Airways.